PERKASIE — The status of each team’s feature back was a feature angle heading into Saturday’s District 1-Class AAAA semifinal.

Much ado had been made all week about whether Pennridge workhorse Mike Class would see action after reportedly suffering a concussion during a quarterfinal victory the week before over Pennsbury.

Spring-Ford junior tailback Jarred Jones, meanwhile, was a question mark as well, having come out of last week’s quarterfinal win over Ridley with a bruised knee.

So when Class started the game and Jones remained on the Spring-Ford sideline, conventional wisdom suggested it would be a huge advantage for the third-seeded hosts.

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Over the final two quarters, however, the tale of the two standout rushers took a decided turn to the Spring-Ford side.

Jones didn’t earn his first carry until the first play of the second half, but boy was it a memorable one — a 74-yard TD sprint that set the tone for a strong finish as Spring-Ford continued its scintillating season with a 35-24 victory at Poppy Yoder Field.

The 5-foot-10, 190-pound Jones wound up collecting a team-high 89 rushing yards on 13 carries to help the seventh-seeded Rams (12-2) advance to Friday night’s AAAA final against Coatesville at Downingtown West.

The Rams defense, meanwhile, turned in an impressive collective effort against Class — holding the 2,000-yard rusher to just 62 yards and one TD on 20 carries.

“You’re not going to stop a kid like him,” Spring-Ford coach Chad Brubaker said. “But I thought we contained him. He had some nice plays, but we bottled him up down the field and I don’t recall him having any huge plays.”

After breaking down game video and noting the tendencies of the Suburban One Continental Conference champions, Brubaker put in a separate scheme that involved inserting Jack Haney and Tate Carter to provide a different look in the hopes of limiting Class, who sat out Thursday’s 28-13 win over Quakertown before being cleared to play Friday.

“He’s slippery, and he makes people miss,” Brubaker said. “We wanted to get everybody around the football when he had it; we wanted to grab cloth and make sure we bottled him up.”

That they did. Except for an 11-yard TD run that got Pennridge within 28-24 with 4:30 left in the third quarter, Spring-Ford didn’t allow the 5-11, 185-pound junior a double-digit gain.

Jones, on the other hand, made it worth the wait for his first offensive touch.

“I was pretty banged up all week,” said Jones, who admitted he was “about 80 percent.” “When coach said, ‘Get ready,’ I was ready to go.”

After finally hitting the field on a kickoff return just before the half, he made his presence felt in big way when the teams returned from the locker room after intermission.

“I told him right before he went in, ‘Listen, you don’t have to get it all on one play,’ ” Brubaker said.

Jones, however, had other ideas. He took a handoff from quarterback Hank Coyne, burst through a gaping hole off left tackle, bounced it outside and raced to the end zone.

“Then when he came back, I said, ‘I told you that you didn’t have to get it all in one play,’ ” joked Brubaker.

“He’s a very good back,” Pennridge coach Randy Cuthbert said of Jones. “And when you put him behind a really big line like that and he’s not getting touched until he’s a couple yards downfield, you’re in trouble.”

“I just wanted to get the first down, then it opened up,” said Jones. “I saw (wide receiver) Gary (Hopkins) get his block and I just followed him.”

And the Rams followed suit en route to another potent and balanced attack.

Coyne, who had earlier connected with Gary Hopkins for a 61-yard touchdown, unloaded a 25-yard strike to tight end Zameer McDowell to seal it in the fourth quarter.

Junior Tate Carter came up with some huge receptions and clutch runs. And Yousef Lundi ran for 77 yards as the Rams amassed 193 rushing yards.

“Jarred’s been banged up,” Brubaker said. “He didn’t take any first team reps during the week. But when he’s in there, it helps us so much. It allows us to put Tate Carter at wide receiver, and allows us to rotate the backs a little so everyone is fresh.”

Jones, who missed a total of seven games earlier with a broken wrist and ailing shoulder, has still managed to rush for 927 yards and an 8.6 average.

“It was a little bit frustrating,” he said of his injury issues. “But these past few weeks (in the postseason) have been great. I don’t want it to end.”

It didn’t Saturday, thanks both to a triumphant return by Jones and a defense that passed the “Class” test.